The California fires give us a taste of what climate change will mean in human terms — and governments still aren’t prepared.
For days now, a cloud of acrid smoke has settled over the Bay Area, blown down from the Kincade Fire in the north. More than 200,000 people have been evacuated from that fire alone, while the lingering effects of a long drought and high winds have turned the region into a tinderbox. On Sunday, a sudden fire in Vallejo stopped traffic on a bridge across the northeast side of the bay, forcing workers to abandon toll booths as the bridge was swallowed with smoke.
At the same time, many are blaming the scale of the fire on poor land management, as suburbs sprawl out into previously unbuilt land and expand the population’s exposure to wildfire. 'We are still building homes in flood plains' None of these are insurmountable challenges, although they force us to make trade-offs we would rather not make. It would mean denser development or fewer houses in general, along with a less reliable and more expensive power grid.
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